Remember, right from the start of this class, it has been made clear to us that we are not to expect some far-off God to sit around thinking about us, doing things for us, but rather we are to contemplate God. “Ye shall know the Truth,” and then this Truth that we know, this is the Truth that goes before us to break the one-inch asphalt, to prepare a place for us, to prepare mansions for us. And so, life becomes really a going from one meditation to another, until eventually the day comes when you are meditating without sitting down to close your eyes. You are meditating while you’re driving your car. Why? Because you’re inwardly contemplating a Truth of Being. No matter what you’re doing, there’s always some little area of consciousness, some little space in your mind, wherein you can contemplate reality, even while you’re doing the mundane things of life.

And so it is that you may use Scripture, or you may use the passages from Infinite Way writings to trigger your contemplative meditation. Then you sit down, have your contemplative meditation. Then wait for the seal to be set upon it.

Later you will find that after your contemplative meditation that the silent meditation lasts longer. One day you will be very much surprised to find that sixty whole seconds have gone by while you were in silent meditation, and you thought that it was three, or four, or five. You had lost track of time, and only after a minute were propelled back into the world of time and space. As this becomes your mode of life, you will find eventually that you’ll be in meditation, after your contemplative meditation, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, without for a second being aware of the fact that time is passing. And all of this time, you will be in that timeless, spaceless world, which is the kingdom of God.

Question: This question about health. “Will you say if it is because we are praying amiss when we are on the mountaintop and then down in the valley by a claim of illness?”

Answer: No, no, you must realize this. There is a universal claim of a selfhood apart from God, of a law apart from God, of a health apart from God, of a power apart from God, and this is always operating.

Now, it is for this reason that people are sick. It is not because of any fault of theirs. It is not because of any sins of omission or commission, except the sin of not knowing the truth, the sin of ignorance. But all the human race is ignorant, and that is why all the human race suffers sin and disease and accident.

Now, in proportion as you live this life of contemplative meditation in which you are acknowledging God as the only Power, God as the only Law, God as the only Life, God as the only Health, God as the only Being, as you live this contemplative life in which your mind is constantly resting in the assurance that all Power is in the Invisible, not in the visible, all of a sudden, you are no longer quite so subject to disease.

And, if you will examine the history of families who have lived ten or fifteen or twenty years in teachings like Christian Science, and now we find this in the Infinite Way, you will find that their history indicates far less disease, far less accident, far less sin, far less of any of the world’s discords than is normal to the regular run of families. In other words, well to be exact, it has been found on checking that in Christian Science families that children only average twenty percent of the absences for sickness of those from non-Science families. Now the reason is that in these Science families, they do this daily lesson. They are continually reading books, which assure them and reassure them of one Power, one Law, and therefore, to that extent, they become free or immune from most of the world’s claims.

Now, we are finding after fourteen years of the Infinite Way that whereas students in the first two or three years of their study are pretty regularly calling upon me, and lately upon some of our other students who are practitioners, for help for problems of one nature or another. But I have found that after a period of about three years, the calls are few and far between, and by the time we are up to six and seven years, we are getting almost no calls from our students, because the problems that arise, they are able to handle themselves. I’m speaking now not of all of them, of course, but of those who are most serious or those who are most receptive, those who catch the inner glimpse of this Principle.

And so it is that you find that your illness or mine is only an occasional affair, and when it is, it is not your fault or mine, it is just the heavy pressure of the universal belief, and you’ll usually find, too, that it will come on days when world news is worst, on days when we’re either fearing the bomb, or fearing the Russians, or fearing the flu epidemic, or fearing the polio epidemic. Those are the days when we are most subject to the ills of the flesh, and it is on those days that we need to be even more alert in our realization that you cannot convince me that there is any power in the visible universe, in man, or in germs, or in weather, or in infection, or in contagion, or whatnot, for I am convinced that God is the only Power, and God is Invisible, and therefore, all Power is in the Invisible.

And so it is that as we pray without ceasing, which means knowing the Truth without ceasing, the Truth that we know keeps us free.

Now, if you will always remember to impersonalize and never blame yourself, or never blame your patient, or your student for their ills, you will have half the victory won. And the other half comes with this realization of what we call one Power, but which actually means “no power.” It means no power in any form or effect. Is there a fever? Let there be a fever, for there is no power in form or effect. Don’t fight it. Don’t argue with it. Don’t try to get rid of it. Recognize. Know the Truth that all Power is Invisible governing visible form and effect. And then, you can sit beside your patient with fever and rest in the assurance, “I in the midst of thee,” the invisible Power is the only Power and that which is visible is not power.

The other day this came to me as I was writing a letter to one who had asked for help that the soldiers always say they never fear the bullet they can hear. Why? It has already gone by. And the thought came to me, too, why fear the condition that we can see, or hear, or taste, or touch, or smell, since it has already gone by? The Power itself is in the Invisible. Try it and see how you lose your fear. Once your fear is lost of any person or condition, they have no hold over you whatsoever.

Question: “What has to be done when physical exhaustion seems to hold the fort?”

Answer: Well, the same thing. Ah, when physical exhaustion is really present, the best thing to do is not fight it, but to lie down, and, or sit down, and just agree with thine adversary. All right, let me sit here or let me lie here and wait for you to pass. Certainly there’s no power in you. Certainly God never made an absence of God. Because all that exhaustion could be is an absence of God. Because in the Presence of God, you know there’s enough strength to break open one-inch asphalt. And that’s not exhaustion. And so God never made an absence of Himself. So God never made an exhaustion, and I can sit here and wait for this belief to pass by. And if you do not fight it, you will find that it will pass by.